


A Fresh Start

by sabrina_il (marina)



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Backstory, First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5424809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marina/pseuds/sabrina_il
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dutch and Johnny's first meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fresh Start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rekall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rekall/gifts).



> I'd like to thank my wonderful beta (whose name will be added here after reveals), as well as this super useful cheat sheet of canon events and details: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4857245 :)

The moon was dangerous and filthy and had no law enforcement system to speak of but Yalena was desperate. Her ship needed fixing, the kind that couldn’t be done in orbit, and she couldn’t keep running if the engines fell apart. 

She made a crash landing on a mountain, as far from any settlement as she could find a flat piece of ground, instructed Lucy to keep all the doors closed and opened up the panels in the floor of the cockpit that was also an engine room. She dug through the wiring, praying to gods she hadn’t thought of since childhood, since leaving her parents’ house, that her bare-bones knowledge would let find whatever was wrong and fix it. She had to keep moving, even now that she was in an unfamiliar quadrant she knew she’d never be out of Khlyen’s reach, so it was this or abandon the ship completely. Her hands shook, little flecks of red peeling off her fingernails as she sorted through translucent wires. 

When the doors were forced open and Lucy sounded a desperate sound of alarm Yalena’s heart stopped. She couldn’t breathe for a moment, before her body remembered its hard-won training and worked through the panic, forced her lungs to draw air again. It wasn’t Khlyen. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t be kind enough to let her know he was coming. 

Yalena took a quick look around the herself - the ship was still bare. Meant as a wedding gift, it barely contained enough essentials for a few days’ survival. No cargo, no weapons. Yalena herself was unarmed. She listened to the sounds of the invaders forcing their way through compartments and hallways to get to the cockpit and tried to breathe, one shaky breath after another.

She’d murdered enough people to survive this. Khlyne’s voice was already whispering strategy in her ear. She remembered the first time he’d forced her to face opponents outmanned and outgunned. They’d had to replace the entire kitchen staff in her part of the palace.

When the door to the cockpit was finally forced open Yalena was nowhere to be seen. She let the group of four men advance, look over the controls, and puzzle over the hole in the floor. None of them had thought to look up. She descended and knocked the first one unconscious before she hit the ground; the second she kicked between the legs and then knocked against the hull while he was trying to pull out his gun, the third she grabbed in a choke hold, using his body as a shield and pulling his gun on the last intruder. 

“I’m sorry, we don’t want any trouble,” the last man said, raising his arms above his head as his companion’s body sagged in Yalena’s arms. 

“You’re sorry?” Yalena shouted. The room was beginning to spin for some reason. “Get out of my ship!” 

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said, “with pleasure. Just… you might want to get that seen to.” He nodded at Yalena’s dress. 

“Do you know the punishment for attacking a royal spouse?” Yalena said. “I should have your eyes burned out of your skull.” Her hands were beginning to shake again.

“That seems reasonable,” the man said, and took a careful step in her direction. “Though I’d rather you didn’t.”

Yalena briefly wondered whether aiming the gun at his unconscious partner would be a better motivation for keeping him still, but decided against it. From their clothes, their demeanor, these men were clearly poor. Probably someone’s hired labor. She doubted their loyalty went very far. 

The man took another step. “Stop,” Yalena said, with what she hoped was an ominous warning. She made a show of checking the gun had a full tank. 

She could see Khlyen’s frown behind her eyes. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t shot this man yet, why she hadn’t shot any of them. Except the trigger might as well have been encased in stone. Her hand couldn’t touch it. 

The man raised his hands even higher. “Sorry. He’s the boss’ nephew,” he said, nodding at the body in Yalena’s arms. “Gonna be on my head if we bring him back with a concussion.”

“Drag your other friends out of here first,” Yalena said, slurring the words a bit. The room was spinning in earnest now. “Then come back for this one.”

The man nodded, acquiescing, but before he could get the first body out of the cockpit Yalena let the body she was holding slide. She didn’t see whether he hit his head on impact. There were spots in front of her eyes and the next thing she knew she was on her knees on the floor, her eyes harder and harder to open. She looked down at her wedding dress, bright blue with touches of cyan, patterns she’d commissioned herself, based on her family’s sigil. The blood was dark and thick, muting the colors all over her abdomen and thighs, creeping lower. 

The fourth man was back. He loomed over her, his stupid hair framed by the overhead lighting. He looked worried. Her grip on the gun was still strong, but that wouldn’t last long. 

If she was smart she’d turn the gun on herself and shoot her brains out. But she wasn’t ready for that kind of defeat, not after the victory of getting away. She aimed the gun at the man, arms shaking badly. What could they do to her in this hole in the middle of nowhere that would be worse than growing up with Khlyen?

“Did he send you?” she said, though it came out closer to a whisper. “Did he tell you to find me?”

“What?” the man said. “Who?”

But Yalena was too weak to answer. Darkness creeped in at the edges of her vision, and the last thought she managed to hold onto before it overtook her was that if this was the end, at least she’d died a free bird. 

*

Yalena woke up slowly. Her head pounded, and the light hurt her eyes. It took her a moment to make out the grey ceiling of Lucy’s cockpit. She took a few harsh breaths, convincing herself she was still alive, still on her ship, before letting her brain take stock. She was lying on a piece of fabric - a dirty coat, by the looks of it. Her hands were bound together, there was a new bandage around her stomach, and no gun in sight. 

She took a deep breath before trying to sit up. 

There were no bodies on the floor, the panel was closed, and the front window showed stars against the dark background of space. In the pilot’s chair sat… someone. 

“Welcome back, Yalena,” Lucy’s mechanical voice announced, and Yalena cringed. If she lived long enough she’d reconfigure the stupid AI. 

The guy in the pilot’s chair was visibly startled as well, Yalena could tell from how his back twitched. When he got up and turned towards her she recognized him - the fourth criminal who’d broken into her ship. Of course. 

“I know you can probably get out of those in two breaths,” he said, gesturing at the handcuffs. “I was just hoping you’d give me a minute to explain.”

He was right, she could get out of the handcuffs easily, but she was still weak, and she didn’t know what he’d done to her ship while she was out. The other bodies were gone, and the feed she could see running on the dashboard showed nothing but empty rooms, but this could still be a trick. Why would he keep her alive if all he wanted was her ship to himself? 

“Just hear me out,” he said, clearly nervous. “I’m not trying to steal your ship. I don’t do that anymore.”

Anymore? That inspired confidence. At least he seemed genuinely uncomfortable. It was his jacket under her head, she now realized. His hands had bandaged her wound. “Fine, talk.”

He took a deep breath. “I fixed your engine and the water filtration system while you were out. The navigation needs resetting. This ship wasn’t meant for deep space travel. I’ll fix everything that needs fixing if you just drop me off at the next quadrant.“ _Instead of right here, through an airlock_ , his face said. 

The wound in her side ached. She needed time, food, sleep. Her body had cooperated so far, but she could tell pushing herself further wouldn’t end well. She couldn’t risk it with a stranger on her ship. _Why am I still alive_ , she wanted to ask, but didn’t. “Desperate to get away, are you?”

“Something like that,” he said, and his expression changed. “No one will come after me, you don’t have to worry. I owed some money, but I paid that off a long time ago. I just want a fresh start.”

She should kill him before he leaves the cockpit. She could see his gun resting on the navigation console, as if he’d left it there on purpose, knowing she could disarm him in seconds. He was close enough for her to kick him in the groin, once he went down she could finish him off without even getting to her feet. She felt steadier now, and he didn’t look like someone who knew about pressure points. His relative strength would be useless. Yalena took a deep breath, and then another. 

She twisted her wrists in the cuffs until they gave and then climbed to her feet, clumsily. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this unsteady. The man looked at her with a wary calm. 

“You’ll sleep chained up in the cargo hold,” she said. “We don’t land until I find someplace suitable. When I do, we never see each other again.”

“Fair enough,” he said. 

“What’s your name?” she said, rubbing circulation back into her wrists.

“Johnny,” he said. “Johnny Jaqobis. And yours?”

Yalena couldn’t remember the last time she’d met someone who didn’t know who she was. But however brief this new life turned out to be, however long she had before Khlyen found her, she wanted it to be separate, clean, untainted. Maybe she could pretend to be the girl her parents had raised. She thought of the books she read as a child, at their tiny home library. The old words that weren’t in the dictionaries, the bright colors shining through the antiquated screens. 

“Dutch,” she said. “You can call me Dutch.”


End file.
